Month July 2017

Rule #1, as you’ll remember because it’s come up a few times: Don’t do anything stupid. In Asia simple possession in some countries will get you 10+ years, possession of coke often 30, and smuggling heroin home in a surfboard will get you executed by firing squad (last one in Indonesia, 2 Australians, 2015)

Rule 2(a) might be: Show full respect for all laws and customs when away. It’s like being a guest in someone’s house. So the Canadians in the piece below were culturally indifferent, which is worse than being stupid

At least 2 things can go seriously wrong for distance-riders despite a good plan. The 2 biggees are 1) mechanics who end up doing more harm than good, not intentionally (the choice of them is our responsibility) and 2) Garmin hardware, firmware, software, or maps or anything they touch.

There was a thread somewhere about 5 years ago where an older guy I know said this:

“no one, not even baby Jesus, cares more about your bike than you do”

His point was, learn how and do the work yourself.

I went to see a top mechanic in the States as the stuff he can reputedly do no normal owner can. And probably no mechanic in Canada, one reason being because he knows the HP2, and that’s rare because the bike’s rare.

Producing the following day track was difficult because I had to go back to my old Mac to copy the track into. Garmin Basecamp had crashed my files on my new Mac and I was in no mood to investigate it today. So this blog post is the confluence of the biggest rider aggravations, but hopefully a month or so from now, with a happy ending.

I took the unit on the plane so you can see the ride down and the flight back from SEA-TAC to YVR, which I thought was cool, never did a flight track before, will from now on. Click it for detail

The speed/distance chart of bike vs. airplane was this. One buggy data point before the very end

Accurate with two inputs, but the left slow section should be maybe 5 times longer in graphical distance than the right. A time axis is missing.

I rolled in to drop off my bike at Alyxmoto south of Seattle, a huge shop, maybe 80′ by 80′, workbenches everywhere. Impressive. Here’s Alyx’s HP2, shod with a tiny motard (for summer street) front wheel

Expectations are high as the mods are extensive. I also visited Konflict, the suspension specialists, but didn’t get a photo. Stories to follow.

Change of topic, I got a Raseiniai medal tonight. Very very hard to get

That’s me, top left, wages_of_sin, took out the entire opposition myself and won the game, indicated by the ‘7’ under kills.

Raseiniai is a town in Lithuania where 20 Soviet KV tanks met 100 German Panzers. One KV managed to hold off a large section of the attack for a full day before being knocked out. The Soviet’s consider it their most heroic tank battle.

I’ve joined an Argentinian clan (TANGO) while I’m back. I’m the only gringo. Just playing casually here in Vancouver, my main account is on the Asia server. Looking forward to playing with my friends again when I’m back on the road.

Screen cap of a cluster of dead tanks after a brawl, me bottom centre, alive after that with a brother up and left a bit. Unusual that this happens and no one likes it. As close to full-blown panic as you can get in this game